Heritage Languages and Community Identity Building: The Case of a Language of Lesser Status

Diasporic communities formed as a result of recent migration movements face particular issues and challenges in supporting the intergenerational transmission of their heritage language through language maintenance and heritage language education (HLE) initiatives, especially when the language involved is not one that has high visibility and status in the surrounding society. This paper reports on a case study of ongoing action-oriented research to raise awareness and use of the heritage language within the second and third generations of such a community, Maltese-background people in Melbourne, Australia. The community is well established with the ageing first generation having primarily migrated in 1950s and 1960s. Within the community poorer than average educational outcomes for the second generation led to a programme of research and action to enhance ethnic identification and involvement with the heritage language and culture. Questionnaires, interviews and focus groups were conducted to investigate attitudes to and use of Maltese within the community. These data have formed the basis for other ongoing initiatives to strengthen heritage language maintenance and education efforts, described and evaluated below.